TR01 - Trial And Retribution

by Lynda La Plante

  Belinda put down her cup and straightened her skirt across her thighs.

  "I had thought I was managing reasonably well, Derek. I mean, especially with your support, and, er, supervision."

  She wasn't going to give Dunn up without a fight. But she knew that to confront Waugh with anger or weakness would be fatal.

  "Was there anything in particular that I've not done right?"

  Waugh smiled thinly.

  "No, no, Belinda, assuredly not. You've done very creditably. We would be horrified- horrified to think that you might read any hint of criticism in the decision. But that decision has been made and it is that a partner should now act for Michael Dunn."

  Oh shit, thought Belinda. That's it. I'm off the case.

  "Now," Waugh was continuing unctuously, 'if you could just bring in the file, we'll go through it together all right? "

  The Incident Boom at Southampton Street had kept going and now, after a quiet lull towards the end of September, it was busy again. The committal hearing was almost upon them.

  Walker strode in and took a cigarette from Dave Satchell. He snapped off the filter and lit it in almost a single movement.

  "What's the story?" asked Satchell.

  "Short and sweet," said Walker.

  "Nothing for us on the doll. DNA on the lolly sticks all right the victim's on some of them. But sweet FA on his clothes."

  Cranham came forward. He felt the disappointment on the governor's face as keenly as everyone else.

  "But isn't it true we got her hair and fibres on the couch and the floor?"

  "They're not denying she's been in the flat. They know she was. But it could have been three weeks or even three months before."

  "What fibres did he get?" asked North.

  Walker shook his head.

  "Possible anorak and skirt. Bloody useless."

  Dave Satchell said.

  "Well, it should do us some good. She's not likely to have gone around three months later wearing exactly the same clothes."

  "I wouldn't bet on it," Walker growled.

  "Doubt there's a lot of money for clothes in that house."

  North, by the notice board knocked on one of the snapshots of Julie Anne.

  "She's wearing the same skirt in this photograph."

  Walker had whipped out his notebook and was scribbling something.

  "Well, let's check with her mother find out how new that anorak was.

  I'm away home now. Goodnight. "

  He left a pall of depression over the room.

  Satchell went and stood by North in front of the board. He stared at the picture of the golden-haired little girl, riding a bike with stabilizers.

  "We don't have a case, do we?"

  North turned to him.

  "Don't let him hear you say that, Dave. He may be wondering but there's no plus points for us if he's right. And it's the committal hearing next week."

  chapter 15

  TUESDAY 8 OCTOBER. 9 A. M.

  AS he strode into Wormwood Scrubs, a pleasant, unaccustomed trickle of excitement told Derek Waugh he was alive and ready for a challenge. In his youth he'd done a fair amount of criminal work, though nothing very world-shaking. And then, during all those years of contracts, patents and other lucrative, boring spokes in the wheel of commerce, he'd often wondered how he would perform behind a top QC in a high-profile murder trial. Someone like Robert Rylands, he thought to himself.

  This made it all the more disappointing that the client was fool enough to cling to the skirts of Belinda.

  "Look, who are you? What is this?" Dunn was demanding. He wouldn't even sit at the interview table with Waugh.

  "I'm very satisfied with Miss Sinclair. I don't want anyone else."

  Waugh cleared his throat. He must have put it too baldly. He'd assumed the lout would jump at the chance of getting a senior partner on his team.

  "Naturally, there is no intention of excluding Miss Sinclair completely, Michael," he lied.

  "We were merely concerned to secure for her the benefit of a more seasoned--' The empty chair clattered and skidded across the floor as Dunn kicked at it, his face contorted.

  "Is it my fault? I don't want anyone else. I don't want anyone but Miss Sinclair."

  He pointed at Waugh. The attendant Prison Officer looked on, his mouth a slight twist of amusement as Dunn's spittle flew in Waugh's direction.

  "I don't want you, anyway! I don't like you! I want Miss Sinclair, get it? Understand? Miss Sinclair or nobody!"

  As Waugh left the Scrubs the feeling in his stomach had changed to the slight nausea of an adrenalin hangover.

  Of course, when he told her back at the office, he made it sound like his own decision.

  "I was on my way down there on the tube," he told Belinda, 'when suddenly I thought to myself Lady Preece's estate is almost as much of a bitch as the woman herself, and then there's the Greenways-Benton thing and the Alphastrom litigation, so personally I'm going to have my hands pretty full over the next few months. Anyway, in the end I managed to persuade Dunn that his best interest would be served if you continued to handle the case. "

  "Oh, well, thank you, Derek. Thank you very much."

  "Of course, we'll support you fully from the wings. There's absolutely no question, obviously, of your being exposed to any risks of a professional kind."

  Belinda thought, what on earth could the pompous prick mean? But she didn't dwell on it. She was filled instead with exultation and would have kissed Michael Dunn if he'd been in the room.

  "Who's going to be leading counsel on it?" she asked, winking at Jeremy Oxiey as he came in with a sandwich from Pret A Manger.

  "I'd like Robert Rylands, if we can get him."

  "Rylands? He's the best there is! It'd be fantastic to work with him."

  Waugh was moving towards the door now. He said, sourly, "I'm sure. So I think it would be politic to find a junior out of the same chambers and get him on board asap OK?"

  Waugh made his exit and Jeremy Oxiey could hardly believe what he'd heard.

  "Belinda! You've still got the case?"

  "Yes, Jeremy, I have. But sadly I don't think we shall need the impressive Mr. Rylands."

  "Oh? Why not?"

  "Because I'm going to get it thrown out at committal- I think Michael Dunn's innocent. Now tell me, who's the clerk at Ryland's chambers?"

  A quartet of builders working next to the Howarth Estate wandered out of the site-hut with mugs of tea. Sitting on breeze blocks, they set about unwrapping their sandwiches. After looking around, Jackie Brown nodded towards the stack of sewage pipes, about fifty yards away.

  "Another of them prats having a gander." A dark-coated man was standing motionless near the pipes. Ron Corrigan, the site foreman, bit deep into his fried egg bap and chewed noisily.

  "Police ought to put a stop to this. Nosy, sick bastards." Ron had tried to persuade his bosses to let him take the pipes away, or at least move them. His men thought the child's death would prove a hoodoo and all these sightseers, buzzing like blowflies around the place, seemed to confirm their fear.

  The employer told him to leave the pipes where they were.

  "Perverts," agreed Jackie.

  "Nothing better to do than gawp."

  Ron put down his bap and stood.

  "Yeah, and nick stuff too. They've no right to be down here at all it's a hard-hat site."

  He stumped across to speak to the lone pilgrim. Jackie and the others watched the brief exchange without comment.

  "It's all right," said Ron, returning to the circle and picking up his bap and his steaming mug.

  "It's that young copper was here when they were out looking for her. Police are keeping a watch, like."

  The four men resumed their lunch, staring without further comment at the unmoving, solitary figure of PC Colin Barridge, standing like a sentry over the killing ground.

  Anita, too, had seen the gawpers from her bedroom window and she too wished the builder would move h
is pipes. It was just another reminder of the disaster that had carried away her happiness. With Helen gone, she'd hoped Peter would at least make some effort, but he was hardly ever in. And when he did come back he was drunk and foul-mouthed, lashing out at her and the children on any provocation, breaking ornaments.

  She asked herself who was now today the worst victim of this crime? Not Julie she was beyond all that now. Was it poor uncomprehending little Tony, whose

  father hit him when he spilled his food and shook him when he cried?

  Young Jason, wetting his bed at night, sullen and withdrawn in the day, hardly going near his school? Or Peter, drinking most of the night, sleeping in his clothes on the sofa, unable to communicate, unable to be tender? Anita looked at their lives and thought: how could she have imagined there was anything binding them all together?

  Why had it taken the death of little Julie to make her see that everything about their so-called family life was a sham cheap, hopeless and meaningless?

  She went shopping and saw people begging on the street, and she thought: we're not homeless. So why do I feel I haven't got a home any more?

  She wouldn't say any of these things out loud, not to her mum and certainly not to Peter. A few days before, the vicar of the nearby church had come round. Thank God, Peter hadn't been there. She gave the vicar tea, though he tried to protest.

  "No, no, Mrs. Harris. I didn't come here to put you to any trouble!"

  Then why did you come? she thought.

  "I'm not a ... I mean, I don't go to church or anything, I'm afraid," she had said.

  "Oh, it isn't going to church that counts, is it?" he told her, his bald pate gleaming. The voice was painfully earnest.

  "I always feel it's a matter of values, really. And when a tragedy like this strikes, well, it's hard not to feel those values have let you down."

  When he said 'values' he'd accidentally found just the right word. But she never told the vicar this. What could he do to help her? She hadn't believed in God since her father was killed and she certainly wasn't going to start now. But Anita did feel let down by the values she'd based her life on not God and religion, but home, family, decency and prosperity.

  When she looked out from the flat and saw that grey heap of sewage pipes, she thought automatically of her dead daughter, lying in the cold morgue, her body cruelly opened and roughly stitched up by the people who owned her now, who wanted to use her for their evidence.

  Looking down like this, twenty, thirty times a day, Anita wanted her daughter's body back. More than justice, more than revenge, she longed to take Julie, lay her to rest, say goodbye.

  It was the last value left, her grief.

  chapter 16

  TUESDAY 8 OCTOBER. 4 P.M.

  Melinda returned to Wormwood Scrubs feeling like a winning athlete on her lap of honour. Her adversary had been swept away and the field was hers.

  "Good news great news, Michael. We've got your junior counsel on board, Mr. Sampara, from Robert Rylands's chambers. That means we might well get Rylands himself if we have to go to trial. He's a top-flight silk."

  Dunn blinked. Why's he called a silk anyway? he thought idly.

  Something to do with his underwear, probably. At such moments, listening to her voice, he would forget he was a client. He just let the legal terminology wash over him as if he didn't care, as if he was only a detached observer. Being in Belinda's hands felt good, as long as it lasted. But, in his experience, nothing nice ever did last.

  "What about that other man then? Mr. Waugh? I didn't like him, he tried to get rid of you."

  "Well, thanks to you he didn't."

  Dunn watched the creamy skin of her throat ripple as she laughed. He felt something abrupt ripple through him, too, like an electric shock.

  She appeared to him like the promise of a new existence, a life in the public eye where fame and money were the means and pleasure the end. She made him unearth those deeply buried fantasies of glamour and fame, the Hollywood dreams that survive even the worst of poverty and human degradation.

  "Michael, I think there's a good possibility we can have this dismissed at committal," she continued, brisk and businesslike again.

  "That'll be the next hearing, Michael. The next time you're in court."

  She had told him about committal, although she wasn't sure if he'd retained the explanation.

  "It's when they decide whether they have a sufficient case against you and whether your case will be taken to court and a full trial. I don't think they have."

  "You think they'll throw it out?"

  She noticed how his mouth puckered, the lower lip trembling. Was he about to burst into tears?

  "Well, I don't want to raise your hopes too high, but that's our initial opinion."

  "So there'll be no court, no ... trial?"

  "If all goes well. We're waiting for their papers now."

  Dunn was staring at her. Not at her face or her tits, but at her throat. Suddenly his face broke into a smile and transformed itself.

  Not the lost and lonely child, but the personable young man. He said, "That's wonderful."

  And it was.

  The papers Belinda had referred to were the contents of a large ring file which now lay on the table at the offices of the Crown Prosecution Service. The solid, outspread hand of Senior Treasury Counsel Willis Fletcher rested on them. Griffith and Walker sat anxiously awaiting his conclusion.

  The fingers of Fletcher's other hand idly stroked his beard.

  "Well, Superintendent," he said, "I've been through the committal papers."

  Fletcher's baritone voice was low-key but convincing and Walker found himself warming to the man. He spoke to you as an equal. His self-assurance was earned, not borrowed. Griffith was sitting bolt upright, eager to get to the question-time of this discussion.

  "And what's your view of this rope in his bin? It's just a piece of rope. I don't think it's evidence against him."

  Fletcher opened the file and turned to a yellow-tagged page.

  "Can't see why not. It's an identical type to the one that was round the girl's neck. And what else was he doing with it hanging up his smalls?"

  Walker felt the tension in his body ease a fraction. Fletcher was

  OK.

  He might even be prepared to take a few risks, stick his neck out. He looked at Griffith, whose mouth was slightly open, ready to pounce with another interjection. But Fletcher was having none of it. He held up his hand.

  "The forensic evidence can place the child in Michael Dunn's flat all right. But its value is reduced by the fact that Dunn doesn't deny she visited the flat at other times. That's a card in the defence's hand.

  But a major card in ours is that he didn't say so in his first interview. According to the transcript, let's see .. Yes, Dunn didn't reply when asked if he knew her, then said he didn't know whether he did or not. "

  Griffith got in as Fletcher paused for breath.

  "Of course, afortiori, the doll proves that she was, in fact But Fletcher shut him firmly down.

  "Yes, first he lied about where he found it, then became agitated and admitted the lie in his second statement. But his solicitor had got it all tuned up and running sweetly the second time out, hadn't she?"

  "What about the Gillinghams?" asked Walker.

  "Mmm, well, it's difficult. This evidence is of indecent assault on two girls thirteen years ago, never reported and it's only hearsay in the form we have it at the moment, the mother's statement ... unless you have a development there?"

  "The young women are being interviewed now." Walker hoped to God it was true. The Gillinghams had been giving them the run-around for weeks.

  Fletcher nodded.

  "Good."

  "Well, look," Griffith put in.

  "Can I ask you for an overall view at this stage, Mr. Fletcher?"

  Fletcher raised his large frame slightly from the seat and then resettled himself comfortably.

  "Yes, all right. The forensic
evidence may not be direct, Mr. Griffith, but the cumulative weight of the evidence is strong. I think it'll get past half-time all right."

  Derek Waugh discovered the committal bundle on Belinda's desk during her lunch hour. It had been delivered in her absence by the GPS. When she came in, she found the senior partner sitting on the side of her desk leafing as if casually through Mallory's forensic reports.

  "Is that the committal bundle?" she asked. She was miffed that Waugh was wrapped round the prosecution's case before she'd even had a chance to read it. Bloody cheek.

  "Yes, you don't mind? I've had a look through. I understand you've been having some discussions about getting Dunn's case dismissed at committal."

  He didn't like the idea Belinda could hear it in his voice. What was the bloody man playing at?

  "That's right, Derek," she said icily.

  "I think we could argue that there's no case to answer."

  Waugh turned a page of Mallory's findings and read a paragraph or two before answering.

  "Mmm. But all they've got to do at committal is show there is a case to answer. And I think they'll succeed. You won't get it thrown out and you will have very helpfully alerted the Crown to the weak points of their case."

  "But if we put a bit of effort into the committal, we might--' " Work smarter, Belinda. Not harder. " He wafted the air with his hand.

  "Let it go through. We don't contest anything."

  He wants the trial, thought Belinda. He doesn't give a shit about the outcome. He just wants the glory of an Old Bailey appearance. How pathetic. But then, a little bit of her wanted that too quite a lot of her, if she was honest.

  "Who's prosecuting?" She couldn't help letting her interest show.

  Waugh smiled in a sickly way.

  "Looks like Willis Fletcher. He's only cruiser-class as regards my personal naval estimates. Robert Rylands is in a different league."

  "Have we got Rylands then?"

  By a few thin millimetres, Waugh's smile widened.

  "He can't commit till we've got a trial date. But my informants tell me he's very interested."